One Rule to Rule Them All- Weavile in Standard

Hey, Some1sPC readers! I'm back with a few articles over the next month and all of us here at Some1sPC are going to start discussing the Standard format in the BKT-ON rotation. I wanted to start off the next year of Standard articles with my outlook on how the format will develop for Hartford Regionals and what decks should see a rise in play at League Cups over the next month. Let's jump into it!

The obvious big impact of the rotation is going to be the loss of VS Seeker. Each deck played between 3-4 copies which offered a slew of utility for every deck to bounce between. Whether it be reusing an Acerola or Guzma to control the board state or ripping a VS Seeker off an N to two to replenish your hand, VS Seeker sculpted a majority of how we built our decks. Even with the presence of Garbodor, we still saw VS Seeker being played in high numbers and its loss is going to impact the Meta in various ways. Here are a few things I see developing over League Cup lists in the next weeks:

1.Garbodor decks will start playing a 2-2 line of Trashalanche and Garbotoxin.

It's no secret that Garbotoxin is a ridiculous ability in the Standard format even with multiple copies of Field Blower running around. I think players have or will start to recognize that the top decks in the format like Golisopod, Gardevoir, and Volcanion can function with a low amount of items in the discard pile, thus making Trashalanche significantly weaker. Coupled with the fact that VS Seeker is no longer in the format, we may see less items in the discard pile going into the Mid Game swing. Previously, with VS Seeker around, Trashalanche could easily generate OHKOs or 2HKOs against 170 to 190 HP EX & GX Pokémon when paired with Choice Band. Now that it’s gone, I think we lost a little bit of power that Trashalanche needs to completely take over a game considering our opponents will have more Supporters to work with, as they compensate for the loss of VS Seeker. This isn't to say that Trashalanche isn't a strong one prize attacker but most decks sporting Garbodor will be looking to put a Garbotoxin online rather than kick faces in with Trashalanche.

2.Players will ignore playing supporters such as Hau, Hala, Sophocles, or Wicke in favor of four Professor Sycamore, four N, three Guzma, and two-three Acerola.

I don't believe that Supporter use among the average players will take a huge jump without a League Cup win (by a well-known player) or a huge performance at Hartford Regionals convinces them otherwise. Instead, players will default to the supporter line above while playing one copy of Professor Kukui and Brigette to fill out their entire Supporter line. Backed with a minimum of three Tapu Lele GX, I believe a majority of the player-base is convinced this is enough consistency to Setup and close out games. Again, the strength of Garbotoxin and use of only two Field Blower may disrupt this line of thinking as Garbotoxin shutting off Tapu Lele's Wonder Tag should see a significant impact on how consistent a player will recover off an N to three or four. I need to do a bit more testing to determine if this supporter line is indeed enough to close out games or is it only sufficient when playing decks that can work off of an established board state such a Volcanion, Metagross, or Ninetales.

3.Volcanion/Ho-oh/Salazzle, Golisopod/Garbodor, Gardevoir GX, and Ninetales will be the most played/successful decks in the current cups.

This is one of those "well that is obvious Russ" points but I think the four decks mentioned above are extremely strong for any League Cups over the next few weeks. The lists we've seen of these decks from Nationals and Worlds are easily transferred into the Standard format as most of them just copy the Supporter line I discussed in point two. These decks are consistent, offer the ability to adapt to new strategies, and are easy to pilot which makes it both a boring and a blessing to play. Some players don't have a bunch of testing time on their hand to build decks or work out the kinks of their list so they'll just copy a list online, make two or three card changes, and roll with it to a League Cup hoping to get some points. I'd recommend one of the four above if you were to play in a tournament needing points.

Weavile

According to my less than extensive knowledge of the history on Weavile BUS, it's been ignored in the competitive scene until Youtuber Trainer Chip did a deck profile video on his variant a month ago. With this in mind, I tested out the list, watched a few games of people piloting it, and fell in love with the spread damage that it can produce against most of the Meta. Let's break down Weavile and see how he can stand a chance in Standard.

Weavile – Darkness – HP90
Stage 1 Pokémon

[C] Rule of Evil: This attack does 60 damage to every Pokémon in play that has an ability.

[D][C] Slash: 70 damage.

Weakness: Fighting (x2)
Resistance: Psychic (-20)
Retreat: None

Let's start with the fact that Weavile is a Stage 1 90 HP Pokémon, which means we'll need to be playing Sneasel and expecting Weavile to get KO'd extremely quickly. His weakness to Fighting typing is quite useful considering there are no Fighting decks in the current Standard Meta and any decks that may arise would have to deal with Golisopod or Garbodor hitting them for weakness. Finally, Weavile has free retreat which lets us prioritize our Float Stone or Switch targets on other Pokémon we have in play instead of our main guy. This offers up a little bit of utility to pick when we'd like to start swinging with Weavile instead of attacking with him just because he's stuck active. With that out of the way, let's get into his attacks.

Rule of Evil is an interesting attack that spreads 60 damage to each Pokémon in play. This means it will hit both you and your opponent's Pokémon with abilities. While 60 damage may not seem like much, when paired with Tapu Koko's Flying Flip you can spread a ridiculous amount of damage on the board and take multiple prizes off single attacks. The key point I'd like to make here is that the attack is for a single Colorless Energy. Trainer Chip decided to use Dark Energy for his deck but I choose to change it up to make up for its tough matchups.

Here's what my current decklist looks like for Standard. I'm still working on testing out the tougher matchups but the deck has been setting up and working consistently.

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SOME1SPC was created by Christopher Taporco, Dylan Bryan, Marc Albright, and Russell LaParre with the intention to provide quality competitive content for the Pokemon Trading Card Game. We're a group of friends looking to better ourselves and the community by leveling up our deckbuilding, gameplay, and knowledge.